5 Ways To Deal With Bad Tenants When Selling a Home

Nakul Kongovi | November 28th, 2016

Broken window panes, holes in the wall, nasty odours, and a loss of hundreds of dollars, one would wonder what was the name of the storm that passed by? Well, it might not be a storm, but the case of having a bad tenant.

It is impossible to find a landlord with one or two experiences with such tenants. The ones who try your patience and talk you into ‘one more chance’, or the ones who treat your property in the worst possible way, they can be found just everywhere. And the worst part is, the nuisance just gets worse when you want to sell your house occupied by them.

If you are one such landlord, planning to sell your home, but held back due to such trouble makers, these tips are certainly for you. Read on and know how to deal with terrible tenants.

Hit The Right Note

You might be really tempted to shout at your tenants and tell them that you have had enough, and you want them to vacate right away! But doing so is not advisable because the result might not be a pleasant one. Damaged property is not what you want to end up with while selling a home, Right?

A right balance between a polite, yet a firm attitude is required to maintain a fine line so that you don’t go and explode in front of your bad tenants.

Inspect Your Home

Before even you let your tenant know that you are planning to get them out of the house, do a thorough survey of the entire property. Check the walls, dents and the appliances which are yours, and make sure that nothing is broken. Take photographs as well, you may need them later.

If your tenants get angry, and decide to show their anger on your property, the inspection you did might be enough to prevent such acts. They know that you know how things were before, and they wouldn’t want to mess around when you have the proof for everything. But this is not the case with everybody. You need to be prepared for all kinds of bad tenants when selling your home.

Lease Violation Is Your Trump Card

The best bet against your bad tenant, lease violations are the simplest way to evict someone out of your property. It might be stipulations in the lease about overstaying guests, the pet you didn’t allow, or something as simple as frequent late payment of rents. All you have to do is have the evidence documented, and your bad tenants will be history.

Sit Down And Talk

This is one of the most important, and the trickiest part of selling your home which is occupied with tenants. Once you have everything ready, it is time to sit down with your tenant and have a talk. You have to be sympathetic, calm and composed when speaking, so that you don’t freak them out and turn the whole situation into a complete mess.

Try and avoid discussing this matter over phone calls or formal letters, as nothing is more genuine than a face to face conversation.

Legal Eviction

The last thing that you would want to deal with while selling a house, is a legal process. The complications in the process may want the tenants to avoid it as well. Moreover, they wouldn’t want an eviction to show up on their record. Sit with them and walk them through the legal process and remind them on how difficult it will turn out to be for both of you.

But if your tenants refuse to pay a heed, you are left with no choice but to evict them legally. But make sure that you always prioritize your safety first.

The gruelling process of selling your home gets annoying when you have bad tenants who tend to give you a hard time. Sometimes you even wish you could sell them along with your house! Well, you can actually do that. Get in touch with Realty Simplified LLC, and we will buy your house even though it is occupied by tenants. Drop a mail, or call us to know more about how we buy houses Houston.